Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Annual exhibit supports ‘Art for Change’ project

PANAMA CITY — Proceeds
from the fifth annual Northstar Arts show will be used to beautify the county
and provide “artistically altered” benches and trash receptacles at Bay Town
Trolley stops.

The Northstar Arts show and sale will be 7-9 p.m. today
(Friday, March 1)at CityArts Cooperative in downtown Panama City. The project
is sponsored by Northstar Church in Panama City, which sees
art as a way of having a positive effect on the community.

“The event has grown exponentially every year,” said
Nick May, the church
arts director, who also is a novelist and founded the monthly
Writers Gallery gathering. Nick added that the venue changed from the church to
the co-op this year because CityArts is pre-equipped for such events, which
cuts down drastically on setup time.

“It’s also a gesture of artistic camaraderie,” Nick
said. “Northstar Church — and specifically Northstar Arts
— has long been a patron and supporter of the local arts community. We believe
artists are important to God, so they are definitely important to us.”

Last year, 314 pieces by more than 25 artists were featured, and 47
pieces sold for a total of $2,566 in only two hours, Nick said. The 10 percent of
sales kept by the church was used to support an ongoing mission to aid the
people of Kiu, a village in Kenya,
in a clean water project.

As before, 90 percent of each sale will go to the artist (which is
unheard of for most gallery events) and 10 percent will go to a church
initiative. This year, the church has decided to use its share of the proceeds to provide for this
community.

“Traveling around the Bay
County area, it’s not
difficult to spot a trolley stop with someone standing waiting for the bus,”
said Northstar communications director Sonya Henderson. “One day, a member of
our arts staff spotted an elderly lady standing holding groceries without a
place to sit, and it struck a chord with them. After a conversation with a
couple of other staff members, we began exploring the idea of putting benches
and trash cans at some trolley stops that lacked these amenities.”

The idea, she said, was to create functional art installations. They
contacted the folks at Bay Town Trolley and learned that financial limitations keep
the BTT from providing these amenities at every stop. Both parties became
excited by the possibilities a partnership could produce.

The Trolley Stop Project will be the first part of Northstar’s “Art for
Change” initiative. Online concept submissions from artists will be taken in
mid-March, final designs will be presented in April, and the plan is to have three
benches installed by the end of May. Northstar
will provide benches, trash cans and a materials budget for each of the
installations.

The project won’t end there. The goal is to provide similar
installations for every stop in a “captivating way” over the next few years,
Sonya said.

“We believe that art can make a difference and is vital to community
development,” she said. “We want each stop to be creative, beautiful, and serve
as a place of rest for every trolley patron.”